If you're involved with someone who is not concerned about your hopes, plans, and goals, you are not in a love relationship. Bad boys do not sit around worrying about your view of things.

"Men can be caught up with a bad girl type, too," says a policeman we'll call Dan. "I wasted 15 years of my life with an abusive girlfriend. Why didn't I take the time to define what I wanted? Did I think so little of myself?"

Bad boys and bad girls will affect all of your friends and family members, too.

Find a safe place and tell this person over the phone, "I need to give you your freedom. I don't want to hurt you, but I will not allow you to hurt me. It's over for good."

"I let my crazy girlfriend come back a couple of months ago," says Dan. "When it didn't work and I had to ask her to leave again, she flooded my basement with a water hose. She also ran up $10,000 on two of my credit cards."

JUDI HOPSON and Emma Hopson are authors of a stress management book for paramedics, firefighters and police, "Burnout To Balance: EMS Stress." Ted Hagen is a family psychologist.